Fresh from his success in stalling debate on the America Rescue Plan, Joe Manchin (Dickish-WV) warns that he’ll pull a similar stunt with respect to infrastructure.
Manchin said that the expected infrastructure bill can be big — as much as $4 trillion — as long as it's paid for with tax increases. He said he'll start his bargaining by requiring the package be 100% paid for, and will block the bill “if Republicans aren’t included.” www.axios.com/…
It’s not that Democrats aren’t be in favor of increasing taxes on the wealthy and repealing the Trump tax cuts for the top 1% — of course they aren’t — but if there’s anything calculated to make the GQP even more opposed to something that they previously have supported, it’s raising taxes.
Manchin says that will insist that Republicans “have a voice” in passing any infrastructure bill. Fine. If he can get them to agree to raise taxes, I’m sure that Democrats would happily accept that. But by now, even the dimmest of dim bulbs can see that the only “voice” coming from McConnell and the Republicans is going to say, “our way or no way.”
It’s not an abuse of majority power by Democrats to require Republicans to feel some pain when the GQP does nothing but obstruct. But the way the filibuster is now implemented, the burden is entirely on the majority to capitulate entirely to the minority’s whims.
My hope is that Manchin, Sinema, and any other “bipartisan” Democrats in the Senate can be persuaded to reform the filibuster even if they aren’t willing to remove it completely. There are some ideas out there. For example:
www.washingtonpost.com/...
- One way to restore the filibuster’s original intent would be requiring at least two-fifths of the full Senate, or 40 senators, to keep debating instead requiring 60 to end debate. The burden would fall to the minority, who’d have to be prepared for several votes, potentially over several days and nights, including weekends and all-night sessions, and if only once they couldn’t muster 40 — the equivalent of cloture — debate would end, making way for a vote on final passage of the bill in question.
- A shift to three-fifths of the Senate “present and voting” would similarly require the minority to keep most of its members around the Senate when in session. If, for example, the issue in question were voting rights, a Senate deliberating on the floor, 24 hours a day for several days, would put a sharp spotlight on the issue, forcing Republicans to publicly justify opposition to legislation aimed at protecting the voting rights of minorities. Weekend Senate sessions would cause Republicans up for reelection in 2022 to remain in Washington instead of freeing them to go home to campaign. In a three-fifths present and voting scenario, if only 80 senators showed up, only 48 votes would be needed to get to cloture. Add to that a requirement that at all times, a member of the minority party would have to be on the floor, actually debating, and the burden would be even greater, while delivering what Manchin and Sinema say they want — more debate.